Ah, I see. The amounts can be set at whatever the players agree upon, though, right?

To be honest, I just like gambling. I'm pretty good at games like poker and Bullshit... can I say that here? But, most of my skill doesn't lie with being good at the game itself, as much as it does with reading my friends. Truthfully, I have no real skill when it comes to poker, and I still don't understand half the rules, but I'm good at bluffing. Considering that you can't really bluff in rummy at all, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that it can't really be done in mah jong, either.

Still, I like the solitaire version of mah jong. I took a look at the Wiki page, and real mah jong seems more interesting. If it's even only half as complicated as it looks, maybe I'll actually learn to play it one day. But even if I don't, I'm sure I could cheat my way through a game.=P

revolutionary wrote:Considering that you can't really bluff in rummy at all, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that it can't really be done in mah jong, either.

I don't know the rummy game, but in Mahjong there is the bluff factor. Of course it is not as in pocker, but it is there. For example, you may lead the other players to believe you are constructing a particular type of game, so that they discard tiles you need and that they normally would not discard.

Yudan Taiteki wrote:It's not that complicated. It looks difficult when people play it because most players who are decent play it very quickly. As Dehitay indicates, the game is basically rummy with tiles. The most complicated part is the scoring.

Also just to be nitpicky, it's not really a "betting" game since the payments are all decided by a fixed scoring table (the only decision the players have to make before the game is what amount of money each point represents; the people I play with usually use 10 cents a point with the average hand being worth 5-10 points).

Yeah...I don't know the terminology here, but I was trying to draw a distinction between a game where the players can freely choose how much money to wager on things vs. a game where the points and payouts are predetermined and cannot be changed during the game.

I don't know about online sites, but I have the Mah-jong Handbook which I quite like.

I never bothered to search for Mah Jong threads before, but it's interesting to see that people here play. Somehow I wouldn't have figure Yudan for a Mah Jong player, but it's good to know. My best win ever was "Suu anko tanki", but I got "Tsuu ii sou" once as well!

I always found this site very useful. The layout is a bit chaotic, but it has a lot of info on the game and everything related to it, plus tons of links to sites that have rules of different variants (on the site itself you can also find some basic rules).

now that this thread is alive again, I have a MahJong related question. If somebody discards and you take it with a kan, then complete your hand with the replacement tile, is it considered ron or tsumo? Your turn began with a steal, but ended with a draw, so I'm somewhat curious.